The peculiar circumstances
characterizing the erection of Kentucky into one of the states of the
Federal Union render it necessary to give a brief review of its settlement
before entering upon its history as a separate commonwealth.

The original thirteen
colonies were organized before anything definite was known of the
territory now embraced within its limits or of that extending westward to
the Pacific. It was the hunting ground of various hostile tribes of
Indians, and it was not until Dr. Thomas Walker, in 1750, and Col.
Christopher Gist, in 1751, made their explorations that there existed any
definite knowledge of its topography or other features which later proved
so alluring to the immigrant from the east. Even then, it was not until
1769 that it was first visited by Daniel Boone, and no permanent
habitation was erected until 1774 when James Harrod and a few other
Virginians made a settlement at what is now Harrodsburg in the central
portion of the state. A year later the fort at Boonesborough, not far
distant, was built and became the nucleus of other similar defensive
stations, by means of which tenure of the territory was maintained against
the combined efforts of the Indians and the British.

The settlement of Kentucky is invested with an
interest not merely from its local bearing and its rapid growth from an
uninhabited wilderness to a new member of the Republic, but from its
influence in promoting the settlement of the west and in winning to the
Federal control the vast territorial area now comprising the states of
Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and that part of Minnesota
east of the Mississippi, through the genius of George Rogers Clark, one of
its early pioneers. The achievement of this great leader who, with a mere
handful of backwoodsmen, while not yet thirty years of age, wrested this
territory from the British in 1779, cannot be overestimated in its
influence upon the rapid settlement of the West and the cause of American
independence. Nor was the civic growth of Kentucky less remarkable in its
otherwise rapid development. The first movement looking to the
establishment of local self-government was the meeting of the House of
Delegates or Representatives of the Colony of Transylvania at
Boonesborough on May 23. 1775. composed of delegates from the following
settlements: Boonesborough, Harrodsburg, Boiling Springs and St. Asaphs,
all comprised in a limited territorial area. The list of delegates
included the names of many who afterwards bore a conspicuous part in the
history of the state. The meeting was called by Richard Henderson,
president of the Transylvania Company composed of North Carolinians, who
had, on March 17 previous, purchased from the Cherokee Indians, by treaty
held at Watauga, in East Tennessee, that part of Kentucky south of the
Kentucky River. All the formalities of a parliament were observed,
including an opening address from Colonel Henderson and a formal response
from Thomas Slaughter, the presiding officer. Various acts were passed,
such as establishing courts, regulating the militia, to prevent profane
swearing and Sabbath breaking, and for preserving the game and improving
the breed of horses. But the session was brief, as later proved the life
of the government sought to be organized. Virginia claimed priority of
title to the land by virtue of the treaty of Fort Stanwix, New York, Nov.
5, 1768, by which the Cherokees had sold to that colony all their lands in
Kentucky and declared the Henderson purchase void. North Carolina also
repudiated the claim, but both commonwealths, in view of the service
rendered by the Henderson Company in promoting the settlement of the west,
donated to it a tract of 200,000 acres of land. That of Virginia was
located at the mouth of Green River, Kentucky, comprising in part the
present county of Henderson, while North Carolina contributed an equal
quantity of rich lands in Powell's Valley at the base of the Cumberland
Mountains in East Tennessee.

The impetus given to the settlement of
Kentucky by the incoming of the Henderson Company was in no measure
checked by its dissolution, but with the foothold gained by the
establishment of the nucleus of stations and forts, not far distant from
Boonesborough, was maintained by the bravery of the pioneers who
successfully resisted the efforts of the Indians and their British allies
to prevent their occupation of the country. The story of the heroic
struggle of the pioneers of Kentucky during the American Revolution and
for more than a decade after its close is one of unparalleled courage and
fortitude, involving, as it did, not only the defense of their immediate
firesides but the conquest of the northwest from the British and the
protection of the pioneers thereto from Indian and Canadian aggression.

Virginia, assuming jurisdiction over the
territory embraced in Kentucky was not slow in organizing civil government
therein. From the start it was held as part of Fincastle county, but on
Dec. 6, 1776, the legislature of Virginia established the county of
Kentucky, and in the following April burgesses were chosen to represent
it, the first court being established at Harrodsburg in September of that
year. On Nov. 1, 1780, the county of Kentucky was divided into three
counties, Jefferson, Lincoln and Fayette, each with a colonel,
lieutenant-colonel and surveyor; and thence every few years afterwards
additional counties were organized, the civil government gradually
supplanting the more primitive methods. Meantime the tide of immigration,
chiefly from Virginia, was steadily increasing, embracing many men of
prominence in their former homes and others who subsequently achieved
distinction in their new one. The roll embraces too many of merit to admit
of singling out a few for illustration. Upon these brave pioneers was
imposed the task, not only of forming a civil government, but of
protecting the lives of their families from the savage Indian tribes of
the northwest, stimulated in their desire to recover posses, sion of their
hunting grounds by the British who, utilizing them as part of their
military force in the colonial war, added to their barbarities by a bounty
for the scalps of the settlers. It was not until 1783 that the Indians
were sufficiently subdued to exempt the territory of Kentucky from
organized invasion, while, for more than a decade later, small predatory
bodies made life unsafe in every part of the territory occupied. The close
of the Revolutionary War brought but little relief to the pioneers. The
British, in violation of the treaty of peace which secured independence of
the colonies, refused to give up the forts of the northwest territory
until 1795, and it was not until the victory of Wayne at Fallen Timbers,
in 1794, followed by the treaty of peace with the Northwest Indians at
Greenville, Ohio, Aug. 3, 1795, that Kentucky was relieved of both
defensive and aggressive measures against the savages for the sanctity of
their homes.

Notwithstanding these adverse conditions, an early sentiment was
manifested by the pioneers in favor of the organization of the territory
as an independent colony.

In 1784 the first convention looking to the
establishment of a separate government was held at Danville with ten
successive ones, at intervals, until its final admission as a state in
1792. Thus it will be seen that within nine years after the erection of
the fort at Boonesborough the pioneers of Kentucky began an organized
movement for the erection of the territory into a separate government and
eight years later perfected its organization as a state, and it was
admitted as the fifteenth member of the Federal Union with a census
population of 73,677.

The Constitutional History of Kentucky.

The constitutional history of Kentucky from
its admission into the Union as a state until the War of Secession, and to
the present date, is easy of comprehension, having been simply an
evolution of the conditions of its original organization as a state to
those which now prevail. The first constitution which went into effect
June 1, 1792, followed the lines of governmental principles and policies
of the parent commonwealth. It required, however, but a very brief period
of experience to demonstrate that, in many of its provisions, it fell
short of putting into practical operation the advanced principles of
constitutional liberty which had been won by the colonies by their
successful struggle during the Revolution.

The act of the Virginia legislature which
finally led to the erection of Kentucky as a separate state is what is
known in Kentucky as the "Compact with Virginia," entitled "An act
concerning the erection of the District of Kentucky into an independent
state, approved Dec. 18, 1789." This provided that in the month of May,
1790, on the respective court days of the several counties, then numbering
nine, viz.: Jefferson, Nelson, Mercer, Lincoln, Madison, Fayette,
Woodford, Bourbon and Mason, there should be elected from each county five
representatives to a convention to be held in Danville July 26, 1790, "to
consider and determine whether it be expedient for and the will of the
good -people of the said district that the same be erected into an
independent state," upon terms later prescribed as to boundary, land
grants and other details. The act further provided that if the convention
should approve the erection of the district into an independent state, on
the terms prescribed, it should fix a day after the 1st of November, 1791,
on which the authority of Virginia should cease and the compact become
mutually binding upon the parties, and unalterable by either without the
consent of the other. This was coupled with a proviso that prior to the
1st of November, 1791, the General Government of the United States should
assent to the erection of the said district into a separate state,
releasing Virginia from all obligations arising from the said district, as
being a part thereof, and agree that the proposed state should,
immediately after the day fixed posterior to the 1st of November, 1791, or
at some convenient future day, be admitted into the Federal Union.

This was the third act of Virginia consenting
to the separation of Kentucky, the first having been in January, 1786, and
the second in the following October, but it met with no favorable response
from the Federative Congress. Finally that body having previously provided
for the admission of Vermont as a state on March 4, 1792, passed an act on
the 4th day of February, 1791, to admit Kentucky into the Union on the
first day of June, 1792.

The First Constitution.

In accordance with the provisions of this act
the first constitution of Kentucky was formed by a convention which met
for that purpose at Danville, April 13, 1792, being the tenth convention
which had been held looking to its establishment as a separate
commonwealth since 1784. By its provisions it was to become operative as
provided by the foregoing act of Congress, June 1, 1792. There were, at
that time, nine counties, as before enumerated, the present number being
120. The salient features of this organic law were : first, universal
suffrage, "all free male citizens of the age of twenty-one years being
entitled to vote who had resided in the state two years, and in the county
in which they offered to vote one year next before the election" - the
first instance in which the principle of unlimited suffrage, now of quite
universal recognition in America, was put into practice. Members of the
House of Representatives were elected by the direct vote of the people,
but the governor and senators were chosen by electors equal to the number
of representatives chosen by the people.

The first General Assembly met at Lexington on
June 4, 1792, and on the 6th Isaac Shelby, who with his father, Gen. Evan
Shelby, a native of Wales, had borne a prominent part in the Revolutionary
and Indian wars, having been previously elected governor, delivered his
first message orally, as was the custom in England and America at that
day. The first act passed was one establishing an auditor's office and the
second one creating the county of Washington from a portion of the county
of Nelson. Thirty-seven acts in all were passed at this session, among
them two for the establishment of Shelby and Logan counties, the former
being taken from Jefferson and the latter from Lincoln. The final act of
the session was passed June 29, 1792. The second, an adjourned session,
was held at Lexington Nov. 15, 1792, the last act of which, passed Dec.
22, 1792, provided that the next session should be held at Frankfort,
which had been fixed by a commission as the capital of the state on Nov.
1, 1793, at the house of Andrew Holmes. This was known later as the Love
house, a large double frame dwelling which remained an object of historic
interest until 1870, when it was torn down to give place to a modern
residence. Since then Frankfort has continued to be the capital, although
for more than half a century strenuous efforts were made, at intervals, to
remove the seat of government to Lexington or Louisville. Latterly such
efforts have been discontinued, and a new capitol, costing about
$1,500,000, is nearing completion, insuring Frankfort's continuance as the
seat of government indefinitely. The present State House, soon to be
vacated, a classic stone edifice of the Parthenon order of architecture,
the sixth in which the legislature has held its meetings, was completed in
1829, and in it has been held all the legislative meetings since, except
in the autumn of 1862 when a session was adjourned to Louisville in
consequence of the invasion of Kentucky by a Confederate army under
General Bragg, which was, for a time, in possession of the capital.

The Second Constitution.

It required but a brief period after the
inauguration of the new government and the practical exercise of its
constitutional provisions to develop a very general objection to some of
them. While that relating to unlimited suffrage, in the sphere provided,
was in keeping with the spirit of individual cooperation which has enabled
the pioneers to win their victory over the opposing savages and the
physical obstacles encountered in the planting of civilization in a
wilderness, the restriction of suffrage in the choice of the executive,
the senate and the judiciary, by electors instead of by the direct vote of
the people, developed an early opposition. In addition to these features
was a provision which gave to the Supreme Court original and final
jurisdiction in all land cases which in its practical operation led to
very general objection. It was net long, therefore, before there was a
strong sentiment in favor of another constitutional convention to correct
these objectionable features. Several attempts were made towards attaining
this end, but it was not until 1798 that the requisite two-thirds majority
of both houses in the legislature was obtained providing for it, and on
July 22, 1799, the second constitutional convention met at Frankfort. The
new constitution was adopted August 17. Its provisions remedied the
principal objections to the first. The governor and senators were made
eligible by the direct vote of the people. The jurisdiction of the Court
of Appeals was limited to cases of appeal from inferior courts, and while
judges of both were still to be appointed by the governor, for reasonable
cause, not sufficient for impeachment, they were made removable by him
upon the address of two-thirds of each House of the General Assembly. The
governor, upon whose reelection there was no restriction in the first
constitution, was made ineligible for the succeeding seven years after the
time of his election. The office of lieutenant-governor, for which there
was no provision in the first convention, was created by the second, with
the same qualifications as the governor. The new constitution became
operative June 1, 1800. James Garrard, who had been elected governor in
1796, as successor to Governor Shelby by a bare majority over Benjamin
Logan, was again elected in 1800, the only instance of a governor of
Kentucky having succeeded himself by consecutive elections. Governor
Shelby was again reelected governor in 1812, since which time no governor
has served two full terms.

The Third and Fourth Constitutions.

The third constitution of Kentucky was adopted
by a convention which met at Frankfort Oct. 1, 1849, a half century after
the adoption of the second one, and it bears date June 11, 1850. The
salient features in which it differed from the previous one consisted,
first, in making all officers, state and county, including the judiciary,
elective, and incorporating the system of common school education as a
constitutional, instead of legislative, subject, and providing for the
election of a superintendent of public instruction, provisions, the
necessity of which had long been felt. In the matter of contracting debts
the legislature was limited to $500,000, except "to repel invasion,
suppress insurrection, or, if hostilities are threatened, to provide for
the public defense," coupled with a provision that the General Assembly
should have no power to pass any act or resolution for the appropriation
of any money, or the creation of any debt exceeding the sum of $100 unless
the same, on its final passage, should be voted for by a majority of all
the members elected to each branch of the General Assembly, and requiring
the yeas and nays to be entered upon the journal. These were very salutary
provisions, prohibiting such large expenditures as had been made in
railroad construction, slack water navigation and the like. The granting
of divorces, changing of names of individuals and permission for the sale
of estates of infants or persons under legal disability were also taken
from the legislature and relegated to the courts of justice.

The fourth constitution was adopted in
convention at Frankfort Sept. 28, 1891, after an interval of forty-one
years since the adoption of the preceding one. Its salient feature is the
recognition in the organic law of the changes effected by the war in
regard to the negro and previously observed by the legislature. In all his
legal rights he is placed on an equality with the white, with no
restriction as to suffrage, testimony or participation in the benefits of
the common school fund, except as to the latter, separate schools are
provided for the two races. The most notable change occurs in the manner
of voting. Under previous constitutions the viva voce system was the
method prescribed for all elections. The new constitution inaugurated the
Australian ballot. In some respects the change has been salutary as
protecting, by its secret feature, the independence of the voter, but the
system has shown defects in its cumbersome machinery and has not as fully
eliminated the matter of suffrage from fraudulent manipulation as was
hoped. Another feature of the new instrument is that while it restricts
the legislature in regard to many subjects hitherto under its control, it
has embodied in the organic law a large mass not limited to principles
prescribing the bounds of legislation, but having more the semblance of a
fixed code of legislation repealable or amendable only by another
constitutional convention.

The Resolutions of '98.

The success of the second constitutional
convention in meeting the political views of the people was shown by the
fact that a full half century elapsed before there was a revision of the
fundamental law of the state. There was a concurrence in the adoption of
that instrument with the political revolution in national politics by
which the Federal party, which had for three terms controlled the
presidency and dominated the political policies of the period, suffered
defeat in the election of Jefferson over John Adams in 1800, and the
Democratic party began its long career under the leadership of the author
of the Declaration of Independence. In that memorable contest Kentucky
played a conspicuous part in the adoption, by the legislature in November,
1798, of what are known as the Kentucky Resolutions of '98. They were
introduced and strongly advocated by John Breckinridge, a Virginian who
had moved to Kentucky in 1793, and taken a high position at the bar-the
grandfather of Vice-President John C. Breckinridge, United States Senator,
1801-05, attorney-general in Mr. Jefferson's Cabinet, 1805-06. During the
months of June and July previous to the introduction of these resolutions
there had been passed by Congress the famous Alien and Sedition acts, the
first empowering the President to banish any foreigner who should speak
abusively of him or the Congress, and the second prescribing, as a
penalty, fine and imprisonment upon any citizen who should speak severely
against either. It was under the latter law that Matthew Lyon, then a
member of Congress from Vermont and later from Kentucky, was, in October,
1798, expelled from Congress, fined $1,000 and sentenced to jail for four
months for having severely criticized President Adams in a newspaper
published by him. This aroused the people to a sense of the
unconstitutionality of these acts, and Mr. Jefferson took active measures
in opposition to them. In the autumn of that year a conference was held at
Monticello at which were present Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Breckinridge, W. C.
Nicholas, of Virginia, and, perhaps, Mr. Madison. As a result, Mr.
Jefferson was requested to draw resolutions condemnatory of these acts as
unconstitutional, to be presented by Mr. Breckinridge to the Kentucky
legislature. This was done, but Mr. Breckinridge, exercising a conceded
right, made sundry alterations, particularly in eliminating the
nullification feature from the original and justly entitling him to the
credit of authorship. That they were ably presented is evidenced by the
fact that they passed the House with but one dissenting vote and the
Senate unanimously.

Much misrepresentation and misconception of these resolutions have existed
in the general charge and belief that they favored the doctrine of
nullification or implied a purpose of resistance to Federal authority. A
just view will ascribe to them but a purpose to enter a solemn protest
against the exercise of the power sought to be conferred upon the Federal
executive, and the use of moral rather than revolutionary means to effect
a remedy. That this was done is sufficiently attested by history. The
Federal party had administered the government for twelve years under a
loose construction of the constitution during the last presidential term,
and the introduction of these resolutions proved to be the basis of the
organization of the Democratic party, the election of Jefferson and all
succeeding presidents, except three, for sixty years.

The School System.

For some years prior to the formation of the
third constitution it had become evident that a revision of the existing
one was necessary to meet the growing wants of the increased population,
and the more progressive ideas in regard to the administration of public
interests. There was, in that instrument, no provision for a public school
system and many restrictions upon the power of the people in various
respects in which other states had demonstrated the wisdom of better
methods. While the state had early enjoyed the foundation of universities,
colleges and seminaries for higher education by the various religious
sects, or through individual promotion, there was no adequate provision
for the education of the young beyond the primary or other schools with a
fee for tuition. The legislature had at various times, from an early
period, donated lands for the benefit of seminaries and other educational
institutions, and in 1838 had enacted a law for the establishment of a
general system of common schools in Kentucky, and Congress had two years
previously apportioned about $15,000,000 of surplus money in the treasury
to several states in the form of a loan, of which Kentucky's share was
$1,433,757, the greater part of which became and remains a part of the
bonded assets of our public system. But notwithstanding a commendable zeal
shown by those in charge of the public school system in its crude
condition, there was but little progress made towards its efficient
organization until it became a part of the organic law by the action of
the convention which framed the third constitution. In addition to a
provision that a superintendent of public instruction should be elected by
the people at the same time with the governor and for the same term of
years, the organization of the school system, by constitutional provision,
instead of by mere legislative act subject to repeal or change at each
meeting of the General Assembly, gave an impetus to the cause of education
which prospered notwithstanding the injurious effects of the War of
Secession and the great drawback to its efficiency in the mountain region
of the state from its sparse population and inadequate roads. For a long
time the percentage of taxation for school purposes was but two cents on
the hundred dollars, but it has from time to time been raised until it is
now, by constitutional provision, at the rate of twenty-two cents with the
power of additional taxation in cities or other school districts which, by
popular vote, may so decide. There has been a steady advance in the
improvement of the system since the war, the negro children sharing
equally with the whites in the privileges for education, the only
distinction made being that which provides separate schools for the two
races. There are state normal schools for each race, that for the negroes
is located at Frankfort and has been in successful operation for nearly a
score of years. The two schools for whites have but recently been
organized, the eastern at Richmond and the western at Bowling Green,
supplanting one formerly attached to the State University at Lexington. At
the 1908 session of the legislature the following appropriations were made
for these institutions in addition to the existing provisions: $200,000
for the State University; $150,000 each for eastern and western Normal
Schools, and $40,000 for the Colored Normal School. For the general
operation of the common school system provision is made for primary,
graded, high schools, normal schools and universities. In the larger towns
and cities, gratifying evidence of its success is to be seen in the
excellence of the buildings, the esprit de corps of the pupils and the
steady advance in all the departments of the system. In the rural
districts which, from the different conditions, cannot give such visual
demonstrations, there is a proportionate advance in the line of
educational improvement. The legislature of 1908 enacted a law placing the
schools outside of cities in charge of a board of education in each county
which in other states has proved very effective in promoting the interests
of education.

In
addition to the provision made for the education of children under the
common school system, Kentucky maintains state schools for the
feebleminded, for the blind and for the deaf and dumb, which have been
long in successful operation.

Early Military History of Kentucky.

The military history of Kentucky dates from
its ;earliest settlement. In its primitive days every man who bore a rifle
or a hunting knife was a soldier belonging to the army of pioneers, who
felled the trees or plowed the ground, with his weapon ready at hand to
repel the red-skinned adverse claimant. He was an unpaid soldier and was,
therefore, not enrolled, but it was such as he who rallied to the call of
Clark and Logan whenever the peace of the stations was threatened or the
punishment of the Indian or his British ally was demanded in the territory
north of the Ohio. The full roll of these men can never be found. They
were too often the victims of the scalping knife, the arrow or the rifle,
the gauntlet or the stake-the unknown heroes who in every contest of
civilization against barbarism, or right against wrong, fill unmarked
graves and have only an anonymous fame.

Virginia, embarrassed with her own troubles in
resisting Indian or foreign aggression, was slow to recognize the value of
these defenders of her western possessions, who in winning homes for
themselves were at the same time zealously guarding against the
encroachment of rival claimants as well as the Indians. It was not until
George Rogers Clark, as first delegate from a convention of the
Harrodsburg convention of June 20, 1776, made his appeal to the Virginia
Convention at Williamsburg for aid, with the epigrammatic plea that "a
country which was not worth defending was not worth claiming," that he
received an order for five hundred pounds of powder upon the arsenal at
Pittsburg and secured an act of Dec. 6, 1776, establishing Kentucky as a
county of Virginia. In due time, after many hardships, the powder arrived
safely at Harrodsburg and was used by the first militia of Kentucky under
George Rogers Clark, then but twenty-four, commissioned as major. From
this initiative dates the first military organization in Kentucky,
resulting not only in the successful defense of the primitive forts, but
in the conquest of the British possessions between the Ohio and the lakes
which was in 1784 transferred, as a free donation, to the Federal
government. Afterwards, when to the defense of the settlements south of
the Ohio was added the arduous duty of repelling the invasion of that
territory by the Indians and their British instigators, there were
regiments under the command of Clark, then general, of men like colonels
Ben Logan, John Todd and John Bowman, whose muster rolls are preserved.
They may be said to have held against the British the western line of
defense in the Revolutionary War, which not only secured the safety of the
pioneers of Kentucky, but contributed, most effectively, to the success of
Washington in the east, since, had Clark suffered defeat, there would have
been a repetition of the calamity which followed the defeat of Braddock in
1775, when the colonial settlers were driven eastward beyond the Blue
Ridge. Had similar disaster occurred during the Revolution, averted only
by the skill and valor of George Rogers Clark and the Kentucky pioneers,
Washington would have been confronted by a dangerous foe in his rear as
well as his front, and the problem of the struggle for independence would
most probably have had a different solution.

But a better fortune rewarded the valor of the
army of western patriots whose labors were prolonged far beyond the Peace
of Paris. Theirs was not only the task to defend Kentucky from the
persistent aggressions of the Indians, encouraged by their British allies,
but to protect the settlers from the east on the territory won by Clark at
Kaskaskia and Vincennes. Unlike the pioneers of Kentucky, they were not of
the material to cope with the savage, having had no such experience- The
first settlements north of the Ohio were at Marietta and Cincinnati in
1788. The movement was a commercial one, involving a purchase from the
Federal government of two very large tracts of land of about one million
acres each, upon the Muskinghum and between the Little Miami and the
Scioto rivers. The projector of the first was Rufus Putnam, of
Massachusetts, and of the other John Cleve Symmes, of New Jersey. The
settlers on the Marietta tract were from Massachusetts, and those on the
other body of lands were chiefly from New Jersey and Pennsylvania. They
had had no experience in frontier life or Indian warfare, and the chief
dependence for the safety of the homes of the newcomers, as well as the
security of Kentucky, from Indian depredations, was upon the more
experienced pioneers of the latter. To meet this situation new military
commanders were sent from the regular army in the east, as generals Harmar
and St. Clair, who had made reputations in the Revolutionary War. But
they, as well as the regulars whom they brought with them, were unskilled
in Indian warfare, and several disastrous defeats followed. In September,
1790, General Harmar marched from Cincinnati to attack the Miami towns in
the western part of the territory with two large detachments composed of
both regulars and militia, which were successively surprised and routed
with great slaughter. He was superseded in the following March by General
St. Clair, recently appointed governor of the northwestern territory.
During the summer successful expeditions were made by Gen. Charles Scott,
of Kentucky, with troops of that territory, against he Indians on the
Wabash, and by General Wilkinson, also with Kentucky troops. But in
November General St. Clair, with a mixed army of regulars and militia,
attacked the Indian towns on the Maumee River near the scene of Harmar's
disaster, meeting even greater defeat than the latter, being surprised and
overpowered with the loss of nearly 1,000 men in killed and wounded. A
better condition ensued when General St. Clair was superseded by Gen.
Anthony Wayne, who had lately been appointed by Washington
General-in-chief of the United States Army. He organized a body of troops
which he drilled and trained in Indian warfare, and built Fort Recovery
near Greenville, Ohio, and Fort Adams at the junction of the Maumee and
Auglaize rivers. He then held the Indians in check and offered them peace
if they would lay down their arms, but they declined. Having in the
preceding month been joined by Gen. Charles Scott, afterwards governor of
Kentucky, with 1,000 Kentucky volunteers, he attacked them Aug. 20, 1794,
at Fallen Timbers, about eleven miles southeast of Toledo, Ohio, and
defeated them so signally that it proved the last of the long series of
conflicts between the whites and the Indians until the War of 1812, the
final treaty of peace having been signed at Greenville Aug. 3, 1795.

The War of 1812.

As in the Revolutionary War and the decade or
more subsequent thereto in which Kentucky bore the brunt of the conflict
west of the Alleghanies, so in the second conflict with Great Britain her
people, from their geographical position as a frontier western state
between the northern lakes and the Gulf, were called upon for an equally
active participation in the conflict. The relations between the United
States and France during the revolutionary struggle naturally led to a
sympathetic feeling with that power in the Napoleonic War, and Great
Britain was not slow to resent such manifestation, especially when assured
of exceptional sympathy in her behalf on the part of several of the New
England states. Denying the right of her citizens to expatriate
themselves, she claimed the right to search our vessels for British
seamen, taking them in spite of their naturalization and not always
discriminating as to native Americans. She also passed orders in Council
requiring all neutral vessels, in sailing from one foreign port to
another, to enter first a British port. In view of such tendencies Mr.
Jefferson, in 1807, recommended the protection of our harbors by the
building of small gunboats for their defense. On the 22d of June following
occurred the outrage by which the British man-of-war Leopard attacked the
American Chesapeake and, after its surrender, bore off a number of its
crew. Upon demand by Mr. Jefferson for satisfaction and security from
further outrage, England made amends for the attack on the Chesapeake but
claimed the right of search and refused to rescind the orders of Council.
Congress approved Mr. Jefferson's action and passed an act prohibiting the
departure of any American vessels from the ports of the United States,
known as the Embargo Act. Irritation on these accounts continued with vain
attempt of the United States to effect a termination of the wrongs.
Finally, on June 7, 1812, President Madison sent a message to Congress
reviewing the action of Great Britain in persisting in her claim of the
right of search and her evident determination, by the orders in Council,
to destroy American commerce, and presenting the question as to whether
the United States should longer continue in passive submission or resent
them as deserved.

On
June 18 Congress declared war against England, and on the 19th President
Madison issued his proclamation making formal announcement of the same and
appealing to the patriotism of the people for their support of the
government. The war lasted two years and a half, the treaty of Ghent
terminating it, having been signed Dec. 14, 1814. Kentucky had already
experienced a foretaste of the struggle which followed this declaration in
the loss of several of its prominent citizens in the battle of Tippecanoe,
fought on Nov. 7, 1811, between William Henry Harrison, then governor of
Indiana and afterward President, in command of troops of that state and
Kentucky, and "The Prophet," a brother of Tecumseh, the Indian chief who,
in the War of 1812, played a conspicuous part and was killed at the battle
of the Thames. The inception of the hostility between the Indians and the
whites was a treaty by which the latter, representing the territory of
Indiana, had purchased certain lands from Indians represented by Tecumseh
and "The Prophet." After having received the first payment they conceived
the idea of forming a great confederacy of Indians for wresting from the
whites the Northern territory, evidence not being wanted to show that in
this Purpose they had encouragement from the British on the Northern
borders. Their settlement was in central Illinois on the Wabash River, and
having made evident their hostile purpose. Governor Harrison began
energetically to organize a force to attack them. This culminated in the
battle of Tinnecanoe, the name of the Indian settlement, under the
immediate command of General Harrison, in which the army organized by him
consisted chiefly of regulars, two companies of Kentuckians from the
vicinity of Louisville and a member of volunteers assigned to various
duties. Among the latter who fell victims in the action were Col. Joseph
Hamilton Daviess and Col. Abraham Owen, both members of General Harrison's
staff. The former, who had married the sister of Chief Justice Marshall,
was United States district-attorney, who prosecuted Aaron Burr in
Frankfort in 1806 for alleged treason, and the latter, who had
distinguished himself in the Indian wars of the preceding decade, was at
the time of death a member of the Kentucky senate. The victory of Harrison
was complete and terminated the issue with the Indians. In the
presidential election of 1840, when Harrison and Tyler constituted the
ticket, it figured prominently in the canvass, the favorite party cry and
motto being "Tippecanoe and Tyler too."

The declaration of war by the proclamation of
President Madison was received in Kentucky with enthusiastic response.
Congress having authorized the President to call out 100,000 of the
militia, the quota of Kentucky was fixed at 5,500. This call was promptly
met. Seven thousand volunteers offered their services and the Kentucky
troops were organized with ten regiments, and in August four regiments,
with Gen. John Payne in command, rendezvoused at Georgetown where they
were eloquently addressed by Henry Clay. On the 19th they marched for
Cincinnati on their way to join the army of Gen. Wm. Hull, a veteran of
the Revolution, who had been appointed governor of Michigan by Jefferson.
But on reaching Cincinnati they heard of Hull's surrender at 'Detroit on
the 16th with 900 men. He was later tried by court-martial for treason,
cowardice and neglect of duty and sentenced to be shot, but was pardoned
by the President in view of his service in the Revolution. Thus was again
demonstrated, as in the ease of St. Clair, the incapacity of the veterans
of the east to cope with the enemy in the west. General Harrison
succeeding to the command, the campaign which followed was not dissimilar
to those recounted prior to the peace of Greenville in 1795, the Indians
rallying to the support of the British, and the scenes of Indian warfare
of that period being reenacted on the Wabash and the Miami. But General
Harridan with Zachary Taylor, of Kentucky, then a captain, but soon
promoted major and afterward President, pursued a vigorous and successful
campaign reinforced by additional levies from Kentucky. But again was the
west, and especially Kentucky, made to suffer by the incompetence of the
eastern officers who, however, successful in the Revolutionary War, proved
incompetent to cope with the savage of the west. Gen. James Winchester
had, meantime, been placed in command. He inaugurated a movement for the
recapture of Detroit early in January 1813, which culminated in the defeat
of his army at the river Raisin Jan. 22, 1813, and the capture of himself
and the greater part of his army. But this did not terminate the disaster.
The prisoners, exposed to the vigorous cold of the season, disarmed, and
relying upon the good faith of their captors, were turned over to the
savage brutality of the Indians and massacred by the score. Among them
were Col. John Allen, Capt. Nathaniel Hart and many other prominent
Kentuckians of that day, whose bodies were not later identified and whose
bones were left to bleach upon the field. In the following autumn, when
the Kentucky troops were on their way southward after their great victory
at the Thames, they recovered sixty-nine bodies and gave them honorable
interment. Subsequently, in 1818, they were reinterred in the cemetery in
Monroe, Michigan, the site of the battle. In 1834 they were brought to
Kentucky and interred in the state lot in the Frankfort cemetery. The
battle of the Thames, which occurred on Oct. 5, 1813, when Governor Shelby
reinforced General Harrison with 4,000 Kentuckians, closed the campaign in
the northwest. Following the naval victory of Commodore Perry off
Put-in-Bay, Lake Erie, Sept. 10, 1813, in which the defeat of the British
was as signal as that of the militia on the Thames, the British were left
without the means of further resistance, and hence the American troops,
having no more occasion for service, returned to their homes, save only as
to the garrisons at certain forts, and a successful expedition under
command of Maj. Peter Dudley against the Pottowatamies in November, 1814.

Some adequate conception of the service
rendered by Kentuckians in this campaign may be found by the after history
of many of those who shared its dangers. In addition to Shelby, who had
but recently been elected governor for the second time, there were Richard
112. Johnson, then a member of Congress and afterward senator and
vice-president, Adair, Desha and Crittenden, governors, Walker and Barry,
senators, and the latter, with McAfee and Charles A. Wickliffe,
lieutenant-governors. [For full account of the battle of the Thames and
those who took part in it see The Battle of The Thames, by Bennett H.
Young, Filson Publication, No. 18, Louisville, 1903.]

Battle of New Orleans.

The next call upon Kentucky for troops was
when the British, under General Pakenham, moved against New Orleans. In
November three regiments rendezvoused at Louisville in 1814, viz.: The
first under command of Lieutenant-Governor Samuel Mitchussen, the second,
Lieutenant-Colonel Gabriel Slaughter, and the third Lieutenant-Colonel
Presley Gray. They had been summoned hastily and, poorly armed and
equipped for such a trip, embarked in flat boats November 21. They were
crowded together on the boats without any shelter, and the hardships and
exposure endured at an inclement season produced much sickness. After many
delays and a short voyage they arrived at New Orleans on January 3. A
portion of the Kentucky command, under Col. John Davis, was placed on the
west bank of the Mississippi River when a flanking movement was
threatened, and the remainder in the centre of the main line of defense on
the east side under command of Gen. John Adair, afterwards governor, near
the Tennesseeans under General Carroll. It was this portion of the latter
line which received the main attack of the British who were approaching in
close range, and repulsed them by the rapid and accurate fire of the
western riflemen. The result is too well known to require detail, the
flower of the British army being defeated with great slaughter, including
the commanding general, while the American loss was but thirteen killed
and thirty-nine wounded. The saddest part of the tragedy was later
disclosed when the intelligence reached America that the treaty of Ghent,
terminating hostilities, had been signed on December 14 preceeding. Some
reflection was made upon the conduct of the Kentucky troops posted on the
western bank of the river, resulting in a controversy between General
Adair and General Jackson, but a court of inquiry relieved the troops of
any censure and all bitterness of feeling was, in time, removed. General
Adair, who had been a senator in Congress, was governor of Kentucky,
1820-24.

The Mexican War.

The Mexican War was the logical result of the
successful revolution of Texas, accomplished by the defeat of Santa Anna
at the battle of San Jacinto April 21, 1836. Her independence,
subsequently proclaimed, was acknowledged by the United States Oct. 22,
1837, but not recognized by Mexico. On the 1st of March, 1845, Congress,
by joint resolution, declared in favor of the annexation of Texas, and the
same having been communicated to that Republic by President Polk, it was
ratified by the people of Texas in convention. In view of threatening
conditions on the western frontier of Texas in January, 1846, General
Taylor was ordered to take position on the left bank of the Rio Grande,
and was soon confronted by General Ampudia with a Mexican army on the
opposite side of the river. These movements culminated in the battles of
Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma on May 8 and 9, 1846. The war which
ensued was prosecuted with vigor first on the southwestern border of
Mexico under Gen. Zachary Taylor, afterward President, when among the
battles fought were Monterey and Buena Vista, and later by the campaign of
Gen. Winfield Scott from Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico, culminating in
the capture of the latter Sept. 14, 1847. Peace was confirmed by the
treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, Feb. 2, 1848, by which Mexico ceded to the
United States New Mexico and California.

Under a call for 2,600 troops from Kentucky,
ready response was made by the Louisville Legion, a volunteer
organization, and on the 21st of May, 1846, four days after the governor's
call, the command left on steamboats for the seat of war via New Orleans.
It was known as the First Regiment, commanded by Col. Stephen Ormsby, and
was followed later by the Second Regiment with Wm. R. McKee as colonel and
Henry Clay. Jr., lieutenant-colonel, and the Third Regiment cavalry, with
Humphrey Marshall, colonel, and E. H. Field, lieutenant-colonel. Of these
troops the loss was many at the battle of Buena Vista, Feb. 22, 1846,
including the death of Colonel Clay and Lieutenant-Colonel McKee. In
August, 1847, under another call, two more regiments were accepted, while
twelve other companies which offered were rejected as the quota was full.
The regimental officers of one regiment were Munlins V. Thompson, colonel,
Thomas L. Crittenden, lieutenant-colonel, and John C. Breckinridge, major,
and of the others, John S. Williams, colonel, William Preston,
lieutenant-colonel, and W. T. Ward, major. These commands marched to the
City of Mexico too late to participate in the battles preceding its
capture. Their service was, however, useful, as the city remained in
possession of the American army until after the formal declaration of
peace.

In looking
back upon the Mexican War two things attract our attention, one the low
percentage of loss in battle compared with that in the War of Secession,
there having been few engagements which would have ranked above skirmishes
in comparison with the battles the Federals and Confederates fought,
showing at once the improvement in the death-dealing implements of war in
the interval and the more evenly matched contestants. The other
observation worthy of note is the fact that the Mexican War proved a great
school of education for both the later contending armies. This was notable
not only in the regular army but also among the volunteers. From Kentucky
the Northern army had Generals Thomas L. Crittenden, Lovell H. Rousseau,
Cassius M. Clay, William T. Ward, Colonels W. E. Woodruff, C. D.
Pennebaker and others, while the South received Generals John C.
Breckinridge, William Preston, John S. Williams, John H. Morgan, Humphrey
Marshall, Roger W. Hanson and many others of less rank. The war was also a
stepping stone to political preferment, having furnished two Presidents.
In Kentucky those who had aspirations gratified them in the state
legislature, one or both Houses of Congress and in foreign courts. As a
campaign of education it was, however, less remarkable than for the
territorial acquisition which resulted from it. Its duration was but two
years, and yet there was added to our territory an area as large as the
original thirteen states at a cost of less than that of one year's present
administration of the government. It gave us control of the Pacific coast
with all the wealth of California, and rounded out our boundary so as to
leave nothing further to be desired for peace with our continental
neighbors.

The War
of Secession.

The presidential election of 1860 found
Kentucky divided in political. sentiment, as between the lines of the old
Whig and Democratic parties, a split in the latter between the
Breckinridge and Douglas factions giving the electoral vote of the state
to Bell and Everett by a plurality of over twelve thousand votes. But the
overwhelming Southern sentiment was evidenced by the fact that, out of
nearly 150,000 votes, Mr. Lincoln received less than fifteen hundred. As
the discussion which followed the election became more and more intense,
pending the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, and the steps taken by several of
the Southern states for the establishment of a separate government,
Kentucky was not thrown from her poise by the acts of the extremists on
either side. Her sympathies were with the South and she was opposed to the
use of force, but men of all parties were strong in their devotion to a
Constitutional Union, from the great benefits derived therefrom, as well
as from the geographical position of Kentucky as a border state. Inn a
called session of the legislature in January, 1861, to consider the
existing state of affairs, a proposition to call a convention to determine
the ultimate course to be pursued as between the North and the South was
promptly voted down.. On January 25 George W. Ewing, of Logan county,
offered two resolutions, the first declaring that the General Assembly had
heard with profound regret of the resolutions of the states of New York,
Ohio, Maine and Massachusetts, tendering to the President men and money to
be used in coercing the sovereign states of the South into obedience to
the Federal government ; second, declaring that when those states shall
send armed forces to the South for such purpose "the people of Kentucky,
uniting with their brethren of the South will, as one man, resist such
invasion to the last extremity." The first resolution passed -unanimously
and the second by a vote of eighty-seven to six. The Bell and Everett
party was equally pronounced with the Democratic party in its opposition
to force. Governor Magoffin, in response to the call for troops by the
Secretary of War April 15, after the firing upon Fort Sumter, replied: "I
say emphatically that Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked
purpose of subduing her sister states." If there was any considerable body
of men in Kentucky who differed from this declaration, it was not made
known. The Democratic party, of course, concurred with it. The Bell and
Everett and Douglas parties had fused, and their committee, calling itself
the Democratic Union Committee, composed of such men as George D.
Prentice, editor of file Louisville Journal, the Whig organ, John H.
Harney, editor of the Louisville Democrat, the Douglas organ, and James
Speed, afterward attorney-general, on the 17th of April, unanimously
adopted the following among other resolutions: "We approve the response of
the Executive of the Commonwealth," adding that "if the enterprise
announced in the proclamation of the President shall at any time hereafter
assume the aspect of a war for the overrunning and subjugation of the
seceding states, through the full assertion therein of the national
jurisdiction by a standing military force, we do not hesitate to say that
Kentucky should unsheath the sword in what will then have become a common
cause." Kentucky was then a unit on this proposition, and had the so
called Union element kept good faith the many woes which her people
endured during the four years' war might have been greatly diminished, if
not wholly averted. But in time the position taken by the anti-Democratic
party, proved delusive, and the Southern element having trusted too
implicitly in their good faith found themselves, in a few months,
abandoned by their late allies and the state under the domination of the
Federal army. On April 17, the same day the Union committee adopted the
resolution cited, Mr. Crittenden, who had just finished a term in the
Senate, made a speech in Lexington in which he proclaimed the doctrine of
an armed neutrality, with the assertion that if Kentucky would refrain
from taking part in the controversy war might be averted. General
Breckinridge, his successor, personally expressed his concurrence and
committed himself and his party to the policy. It was evident, even to the
most bitter Southern sympathizer, that if this condition should be
maintained it would give protection to nearly 700 miles of Southern
border. It was not long, however, before evidence of bad faith became
manifest. Lieutenant William Nelson, of the navy, a Kentuckian, came to
the state on a secret mission and after conference with the leaders of the
Union party was, as shown later by the official records, as early as July
1, authorized by the President to recruit five regiments of infantry and
one of cavalry and notified by him that 10,000 arms and accoutrements
would be sent for the men thus enlisted and the Home Guards (see Rebellion
Record, Vol. IV., pp. 251-52). In due time he established Camp Dick
Robinson in Garrard county as a recruiting station, and it was in full
operation before the expiration of the summer. Gen. George H. Thomas was
assigned to the command of that post Sept. 10, 1861. Pending these secret
movements for recruiting and organizing Federal troops in Kentucky, the
facts of which were only made public after the war, in the volume cited,
assurances were being given by the leading Union men that the neutrality
of Kentucky would be respected. President Lincoln having, late in April,
assured Mr. Crittenden that while he hoped Kentucky would act with the
government, if she would not and could remain neutral, no hostile step
should tread her soil. Meantime, as evidence of respect for the neutrality
of the state, those who wished to take sides with the South in the pending
war went beyond the Southern border of Kentucky for organization, while
men like Rousseau, intent on supporting the Federal authority in its
alleged purpose of protecting the public property at Washington, entered
upon the recruiting service, but fixed their camps outside the state
across the Ohio. Lulled into confidence by the assurance of good faith on
the part of the government at Washington and its adherents in Kentucky,
the Southern leaders awoke too late to a realization of the fact that they
had been circumvented and that upon proper pretext they would be made to
feel the full weight of the Federal power. With the approach of autumn a
play for advantage began between the authorities at Washington and those
at Richmond upon the technicality as to who should claim the first
violation of neutrality, in which the Southern men of Kentucky had no
part. General Grant, who occupied Cairo, threatened Columbus, Ky., by a
movement on the Missouri side of the Mississippi, and the Federal general,
Smith, made demonstrations threatening Paducah. General Polk at Memphis,
not apparently foreseeing the consequences, moved north and occupied
Columbus September 3, followed on the 5th by the occupation of Paducah,
Ky., by General Grant. The legislature elected in August was then in
session with the Union element largely in the majority, and on September
10 adopted resolutions to notify the Confederate troops to withdraw from
the state, declining at the same time to take similar action as to the
Federal force at Paducah. Gen. Robert Anderson, who was in command of Fort
Sumter at the time of its capture, had, on August 15, been assigned to the
command of the department of the Cumberland and established his
headquarters at Louisville shortly after this date. Thus fortified and
assured of protection, the Federal element in Kentucky threw off all
disguise and, at its instigation, the state became at once the theatre of
malignant persecution of Southern sympathizers and of the most radical
measures for its subjugation to the Federal rule.

On the night of September 18 ex-Gov. Charles
S. Morehead and Col. R. T. Durrett, with no direct charge against them
except that of sympathy with the South, were arrested at their homes in
Louisville and sent to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor, as the initial move
for similar persecution of others of the same class. Simultaneous with
this act General Rousseau's command, which had been in camp in Indiana
opposite Louisville, crossed the river into Kentucky and marched through
the streets with loaded guns, without demonstration of welcome from the
citizens, and were thence moved southward towards Bowling Green, which, on
the same day, was occupied by Gen. S. B. Buckner commanding a force
consisting of 2,500 Tennesseeans and 1,500 Kentucky troops organized at
Camp Boone, just across the interstate line. On the next night Colonel
Bramlette moved from Camp Dick Robinson to Lexington for the arrest of
John C. Breckinridge, William Preston and other prominent Democrats who,
relying upon the good faith which had been assured them of exemption from
persecution, had remained at home in pursuit of their several avocations.
Forewarned of their danger they left the city, and together with others of
similar prominence made their way through the mountains of eastern
Kentucky to Virginia where, in time, they took service in the Confederate
army.

The foregoing narrative of the circumstances
attending the action of Kentucky at the inception of the war, extended
beyond otherwise reasonable limits in a brief history such as this, is
necessary to the vindication of the patriotic Kentuckians who gave their
lives and fortunes to the cause of the South in the four years' struggle
for its liberties. Their after deeds are recorded in the official annals
of the war, but there is not elsewhere to be found as full and succinct an
account of their action in the interval treated, of the details of which
the author can truthfully say, Omnia quorum vidi, et pars fui. The
official records of the war on both sides attest the valor and faithful
service of the Kentuckians who, giving up home and family for the defense
of a principle, left their bones to bleach on the battlefields or returned
after the struggle to begin life anew, wrecked in their estates, and with
only the sublime consolation that they had done their duty as God gave
them to see it. But there is not elsewhere readily accessible an accurate
account of the perfidy and usurpation of power which preceded and
ultimately secured the Federal occupation and control of Kentucky.

The first serious battle on Kentucky soil was
at Mill Spring in Pulaski county, ten miles north of the Cumberland River,
Jan. 19, 1862, when Gen. George B. Crittenden with his command of 5,000
infantry and one battery of artillery advanced to attack the Federal army
under Gen. George H. Thomas, of nearly equal numbers, two of the regiments
being Col. Speed Smith Fry's Fourth Kentucky Infantry and Col. Frank
Walford's regiment of Kentucky cavalry. The opening of the battle was
favorable to the Confederates, but General Zollicoffer, second in command
of the Confederate force, having been killed by a pistol shot by Colonel
Fry, of the Federal army, and a heavy reinforcement to the Federal force
marching to the field under the command of Col. John M. Harlan, General
Crittenden was compelled to fall back and recrossed the Cumberland with
his army, after having experienced comparatively small loss of life, but
being compelled to abandon ten pieces of artillery, all of his horses and
wagons and a large quantity of ammunition and stores. This reverse shed
quite a gloom among the Southern element in the state. In the meantime
Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, a Kentuckian, who was in command of the
Military Department of the Pacific at the inception of the war, and had
resigned in April, had ridden on horseback 1,500 miles to Texas. Having
been appointed to the command of the Confederate Department No. 2,
including Kentucky, he had established his headquarters at Bowling Green
with about 4,000 men under Gen. S. B. Buckner, composed of Tennessee
troops, the Second Kentucky Regiment and parts of the Third and Fourth
recruited at Camp Trousdale near Nashville. General Sherman had been
superseded by General Buell, and the Green River formed the line between
the advance of the respective armies. It was merely a tentative line to
cover the operations of the two armies during organization for activity in
other fields. The active campaign began on Feb. 6, 1863, with a Federal
attack upon Fort Henry on the Tennessee River, resulting in the capture of
the post with Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, of Kentucky, and eighty men, after a
gallant defense; his main force of 3,000 men having fallen back on Fort
Donelson, eastwardly, on the Cumberland. To the defense of this post
General Johnston sent General Pillow with 4,000 men on the 9th, and on the
12th reinforced him with the commands of Generals Floyd and Buckner, 8,000
men. At the same time recognizing the danger to which he would be exposed
at Bowling Green by the depletion of his force and the necessity of
covering Nashville, he fell back upon the latter place at which he arrived
on the 15th, the withdrawal being made without loss of any material and in
perfect order. The fall of Fort Donelson on the 16th by its surrender to
General Grant after a strenuous defense by Gen. S. B. Buckner, after
Generals Floyd and Pillow, his seniors, had imposed that duty upon him by
escaping to Nashville, was a far-reaching disaster which opened up to the
recapture of the enemy not only all of Kentucky but all of Tennessee west
of the Cumberland mountains. Among the troops surrendered were the Second
and Eighth Kentucky, which, with General Buckner, were retained as
prisoners in the North until exchanged in the following August.

Of the military operations which followed, it
is not within the scope of the history to enter into detail. During the
remainder of the war the Kentuckians who had left their homes, most of
them, hastily and with little preparation, to vindicate a principle dear
to them, and who survived its terrors of battle, disease and imprisonment
as captors, quite as deadly as the first, were separated from their
families for more than three years, except in such brief opportunity as
was afforded by the cavalry raids and the invasion of Kentucky by the army
of General Bragg in the autumn of 1862. A large proportion did not live to
enjoy this pleasure. A true muster roll of Kentucky's contribution to the
war can never be made, even though every military organization which they
composed were officially recorded, since under the conditions hedging them
about there were numbers who were in the service of other states. The most
reliable estimate is that there were in the Confederate army 30,000, and
in the Federal 75,000, the latter including negroes. Many thousand more
Kentuckians served in the ranks from other Southern states.

The following is a list showing the various
commands as organized, with the names of their first commanders and dates
of commission:

There were
other organizations composed in whole or part of Kentuckians of which
there is no official record, as Byrne's Battery, which, although first
organized in Mississippi, was composed of and officered by Kentuckians
almost exclusively. In the service Kentucky contributed to the Confederate
army a large number of able and distinguished officers, some of whom are
accredited to other states, but most of whom went directly from Kentucky.
The following is a list of them:

On Nov. 18, 1861, a Sovereignty Convention was
held in Russellville, Kentucky, at which two hundred members were present
for the purpose of forming a state government favorable to a union with
the Southern Confederacy. It remained in session three days and adopted a
constitution which provided for a provisional government vesting all
executive and legislative powers in a council of ten, the council to fill
vacancies. The existing constitution and laws were declared to be in force
except when inconsistent with the acts of that convention and of the
legislative council. George W. Johnson, of Scott county, was elected
governor; Robert McKee, of Louisville, secretary of state, and Orlando F.
Payne, assistant secretary; Theodore L. Burnett, of Spencer county,
treasurer, who resigned December 17, and J. B. Burnham, of Warren county,
was appointed in his place; Richard Hawes, of Bourbon county, auditor, who
resigned, and Joshua Pillsbury was appointed in his place.

An ordinance of secession was adopted, and
Henry C. Burnett, William E. Simms and William Preston were sent as
commissioners to Richmond, and on Dec. 10, 1862, the Confederate Congress
admitted Kentucky as a member of the Confederate states.

Upon the death of Gov. George W. Johnson, who
fell on the second day at Shiloh while fighting in the ranks, the
legislative council, which retained its organization during the war,
elected Hon. Richard Hawes his successor. While the state was occupied by
the Confederate army under General Bragg, Governor Hawes was duly
inaugurated and delivered an inaugural address in the capitol at Frankfort
Oct. 4. 1862. But the evacuation of the place occurring within a few hours
precluded the exercise of any of his official functions.

The Return of Peace.

After the surrender of General Lee at
Appomattox and Gen. Joseph E. Johnston at Greensboro, N. C., the
Kentuckians who received paroles were, for a time, barred from returning
to their homes by an opinion rendered by James Speed, United States
attorney-general, himself a Kentuckian. This was to the effect that
Kentuckians, Missourians and Marylanders having left their homes to make
war on the Union were not entitled to the privilege of the parole. This
delayed their return to Kentucky, but after an interval of several weeks
the decision was rescinded and gradually the weary exiles returned to
their homes, the welcome which they received going far to repay them for
the trials through which they had gone and to nerve them for a renewed
struggle in the peaceful pursuit of a livelihood. They found the
conditions much changed from those attending the Federal occupation of the
state, the oppression inflicted upon the people by the satraps like
Burbridge, Palmer and Payne had changed the whole current of political
feeling. Many who had been prominent at the inception of the war in
handing over the state to Federal control, had been sent to Northern
prisons or through the lines South, as was Lieut.-Gov. Richard T. Jacob,
an early Federal volunteer, near the close of the war. Garrett Davis, who
had succeeded Breckinridge in the Senate as a reward for his services in
shackling the state, was as severe against the administration at
Washington as his predecessor had been four years previously, and was as
roundly denounced as an arch-rebel. So that instead of coming home to be
disciplined, the Southern soldier was received with open arms, and by none
more cordially than by the Union soldier. At the meeting of the first
legislature all disabilities were removed, and at the second a number of
ex-Confederates were members; and within two years the Confederate element
was in control of the state, magnanimously opposing any discrimination
against those who wore the blue, and maintaining ever since the most
cordial relations with them. Thus again reunited, the people of Kentucky
soon built up the waste places and the state has prospered in every line
of physical and intellectual development. The thorough reunion of the
people of the state was well illustrated during the war with Spain, when
former Confederate officers and soldiers vied with the Federal element in
the promptness with which they rallied to the standard of the country, and
maintained its honor on the field of battle.

Mountain Feuds.

One of the features of Kentucky life which has
excited much comment and given to the state an unenviable reputation has
been the feuds which, although confined to the mountain counties, have
been credited to the state at large and interpreted as indicating an
irreconcilable hostility between the extreme classes, or, as otherwise
expressed, between the mountaineers and the aristocracy. This has not only
been greatly exaggerated as to the extent of the area in which such
disturbances have occurred, but also as to the nature of the lawlessness
with which the state has been accredited. The population of Kentucky is
more homogeneous than that of any other state in the Union. It is the
largest aggregation of English-speaking people on the continent and with
less continental element than is to be found in any other body of like
numbers. The total population of Kentucky by the census of 1890 was
1,858,635, divided as follows: Native-born, 1,799,279; foreign-born,
59,305; colored, 381,137. By that of 1900 it was 2,380,887, of whom 50,249
were of foreign birth and 284,708 negroes the remainder being 57 Chinese
and 102 Indians. And this ratio of whites and native-born citizens has
been maintained from its earliest statehood.

The state embraces an area of about 42,500
square miles with every variety of topography and geology above the
archaean. The length from east to west is about 350 miles, and its
greatest breadth is 175 miles. Its shape is somewhat that of a triangle,
with its apex on the Mississippi River at an altitude of 275 feet above
sea level, ascending eastward, gradually at first, but more rapidly after
reaching the central portion until it attains an elevation at the
Cumberland range of 2,500 feet, with exceptional points in the extreme
middle east of 4,000 feet. Its geology includes all the formations from
the lower silurian to the quarternary, the variation in altitude giving a
corresponding variety in climate and production so that, while in the
lowlands of its western portion the production of cotton is practical and
the cypress of the South grows in its swamps, in the mountains of the east
only the hardy cereals are cultivated, and the forest growth includes the
pine and hemlock of the more northern climes. It will be readily seen,
therefore, what a wide range there exists within a boundary of such
diverse physical features for a corresponding difference in the mental,
moral and physical qualities of the residents of the mountains and the
less elevated portions of the state. It is not because they are of a
different race. They are practically of the same, the foreign population
being found chiefly in the cities and the negroes confined to the central
and western agricultural portions of the state, there being very few of
either element in the mountains, some of the counties having neither.
Thus, the population of that region is almost exclusively composed of
native-born whites, chiefly descendants of the original settlers from
Virginia and North Carolina, and homogeneous with the great body of the
native-born whites of other portions of the state. The mountain section of
Kentucky comprises about one-fourth of the state, its boundaries being
approximately those of the eastern coal field. The greater part of it is
still thickly timbered and threaded with many small streams, the head
waters of the Big Sandy, the Kentucky and the Cumberland and Licking
rivers, unnavigable except for rafting logs after a heavy rainfall, unless
with slack-water improvement. In the narrow valleys and coves the soil is
rich, and with good cultivation productive wherever it is level enough for
agriculture, but the great drawback either to agricultural or other
development was, in early times, and has been until a very recent period,
from the inability to ship products requiring land transportation on
account of the lack of railroad or other facilities. To understand the
situation it must be borne in mind that prior to the War of Secession
there was not a mile of railroad within this whole region, and while it
was the first portion to receive the footprint of the pioneer it has been
the last to feel the awakening touch of modern development.

A thrifty class of immigrants from Virginia
and North Carolina, with a strong infusion of Scotch blood, found their
homes in these mountains during the two decades following the
Revolutionary War. By the natural law of migration which leads those who
seek homes in a new country to select one having features similar to that
from which they migrate, the ancestors of these movers had settled in the
highlands of the colonies even as they had lived in those of their
-nativity. The same law, when in their second migration they reached
Cumberland Gap, led them to select the mountainous portions of Kentucky as
their new home. Someone, in seeking a cause for the difference between the
people of the mountains and the richer and more level area has suggested
that they were of the convict or indentured servant class transported from
England and sold for a term of years. But this is untrue. There was such
an element in Virginia and some other colonies, but in the tide of
immigration to Kentucky there was no such line of segregation. A few of
such may have come to that region, degenerates from the start, but the
great body of mountain settlers were as good as the average Kentucky
immigrants, with many of wealth and education who brought their slaves.
Nor was the immigration to the more favored portions of the state
exclusively of the first families of Virginia, as some of their
descendants would have us believe, but included many of this convict and
indentured class from which grew, on the one hand, a thrifty crop of
criminals, overseers and negro traders, and on the other that type which
makes itself conspicuous, upon the requisition of wealth, by aping the
manners of the well-bred and manufacturing pedigrees to which they have no
just title.

The mountain people have been much slandered,
and their feudal troubles being of the Scotch type involved but little
loss of life and less of property, and in recent years, save, as to the
Hargis feud in Breathitt county, lately terminated by the death of the
leader, there has been comparatively little disorder. Notwithstanding
these conditions, crime and vice of the kind which fosters in certain
strata of a higher civilization did not prevail. Robbery and murder for
gain were, as they are now, almost unknown. The picture drawn by Macaulay,
writing but little over a half century ago, of the conditions in the north
of England, is darker by far than the worst conditions which have
prevailed in any part of Kentucky: "The seats of country gentry and the
larger farmhouses were fortified. Oxen were penned at night beneath the
overhanging battlements of `The Peel.' The inmates slept with arms at
their sides. Huge stones and boiling water were in readiness to crush and
scald the plunderers who might venture to assail the little garrison. No
traveler ventures into that country without making his will. The judges of
the circuit with the whole body of barristers, attorneys, clerks and
serving men rode from New Castle to Carlisle, armed and escorted by a
strong guard, under command of the sheriff. It was necessary to carry
provisions, for the country was a wilderness which afforded no supplies.
Within the memory of some whom this generation has seen, the sportsmen who
wandered in the pursuit of game to the sources of the Tyne found the
heaths among the Keeldar Castle peopled by a race scarcely less savage
than the Indians of California, and heard, with surprise, the half-naked
women chanting a wild measure while the men, with brandished dirks, danced
a wild dance."

But as
the region, of the conditions of which he draws such a dark picture, has
since become, through its developed mines, one of the richest and most
enlightened in England, so the penetration of the mountains of Kentucky by
railroads within the last two decades has relatively changed the
conditions in that much misunderstood portion of the state. The
development of its coal mines has made Kentucky eighth in the production
of that mineral, the output of that fuel in the eastern coal-field being
nearly equal to that of the western, previously the chief source of
supply. Schools, colleges and universities are now spreading their light
in regions which so long felt the need of them. Iron furnaces and other
similar evidences of physical, as well as social and mental, progress are
now to be found in this portion of the state.

During the year 1908 the state was disgraced
by the lawlessness of the night riders in the rich and cultured
tobacco-growing regions not unlike, in purpose, the famous Barn Burner's
organization of New York, which, in the memory of those living, exerted a
strong political influence not limited to the state.

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